Dr Monique Botha

Academic and research departments

My research project

Community Connectedness as a Buffer Against Minority Stress in the Autistic Population

As my PhD thesis, I am currently researching the potential benefits of autistic friendships as a buffer against minority stress and poor mental health in the autistic community. My thesis is a mixed method thesis.

In the media

Research

Research interests

My broad research interests including the social contexts of autistic lives, LGBTQ+ psychology, minority stress, and stigma. Similarly, I have an interest in community connectedness and the roles of intra-minority friendship. Aside from these areas of applied psychology, I have an interest in research methods in psychology and theoretical psychology and its implications for the field of Psychology.

My teaching

I am a graduate teaching assistant on many courses within the department. These including modules across both MSc and undergraduate programmes. Primarily my teaching responsibilities have been on research methods in psychology such as quantitative and qualitative psychology, and social psychology modules. My responsibilities include running tutorials groups and marking assignments.

My publications

Publications

Research into autism and mental health has traditionally associated poor mental health and autism as inevitably linked. Other possible explanations for mental health problems among autistic populations have received little attention. As evidenced by the minority disability movement, autism is increasingly being considered part of the identities of autistic people. Autistic individuals thus constitute an identity-based minority and may be exposed to excess social stress as a result of disadvantaged and stigmatized social status. The authors test the utility of the minority stress model as an explanation for the experience of mental health problems within a sample of high-functioning autistic individuals ( = 111). Minority stressors including everyday discrimination, internalized stigma, and concealment significantly predicted poorer mental health, despite controlling for general stress exposure. These results indicate the potential utility of minority stress in explaining increased mental health problems in autistic populations. Implications for research and clinical applications are discussed.